All the Arts, All the Time

Pop choreographer with a busy schedule Jamie King

January 21, 2012 | 7:30
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In the 1980s, a Wisconsin teenager named Jamie King papered his walls with posters of MTV heroes Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince and re-created and rearranged their videos, move by move, in his mom’s basement. Within a decade, this mostly self-taught dancer landed the single open spot for a male dancer on Jackson’s 1992-93 “Dangerous” world tour; within two decades, he’d become a director of multimillion-dollar tours, conceiving arena shows for such passionate and exacting artists as Madonna, Prince, Rhianna, Celine Dion, Christine Aguilera, Britney Spears and Ricky Martin.

"He knows what I like," said Madonna in an interview last week. "We can finish each other’s sentences."

During an afternoon conversation at the Polo Lounge, tour director extraordinaire Jamie King, 39, laughed at his trajectory from basement-to-arena with these music superstars. “That is irony for you,” he said. “Or maybe manifestation is a better word.”

Content to be a behind-the-scenes force until now, King is in for a huge bump in exposure. His current chores include his work as director-writer of the Cirque du Soleil/Michael Jackson tribute world tour, “The Immortal” (next week at the Honda Center and then at Staples Center), as well as his stint directing Madonna’s lavish Super Bowl performance (Feb. 5), and last but not least his on-screen role in the new Latin-"American Idol"-esque TV series with Jennifer Lopez and Mark Anthony called “Q’Viva!,” (airing this month on Univision and later in spring on Fox).